Topical Antimicrobial Treatments Can Elicit Shifts to Resident Skin Bacterial Communities and Reduce Colonization by Staphylococcus aureus Competitors

Abstract

The skin microbiome is a complex ecosystem with important implications for cutaneous health and disease. Topical antibiotics and antiseptics are often employed to preserve the balance of this population and inhibit colonization by more pathogenic bacteria. However, despite their widespread use, the impact of these interventions on broader microbial communities remains poorly understood. Here, we report the longitudinal effects of topical antibiotics and antiseptics on skin bacterial communities and their role in Staphylococcus aureus colonization resistance. In response to antibiotics, cutaneous populations exhibited an immediate shift in bacterial residents, an effect that persisted for multiple days posttreatment. By contrast, antiseptics elicited only minor changes to skin bacterial populations, with few changes to the underlying microbiota. While variable in scope, both antibiotics and antiseptics were found to decrease colonization by commensal Staphylococcus spp. by sequencing-and culture-based methods, an effect which was highly dependent on baseline levels of Staphylococcus. Because Staphylococcus residents have been shown to compete with the skin pathogen S. aureus, we also tested whether treatment could influence S. aureus levels at the skin surface. We found that treated mice were more susceptible to exogenous association with S. aureus and that precolonization with the same Staphylococcus residents that were previously disrupted by treatment reduced S. aureus levels by over 100-fold. In all, the results of this study indicate that antimicrobial drugs can alter skin bacterial residents and that these alterations can have critical implications for cutaneous host defense.

The Skin and Intestinal Microbiota and Their Specific Innate Immune Systems

“…In the skin, treatment with topical or systemic antibiotics has been linked to shifts in the cutaneous microbiome. For example, use of topical antibiotics, such a bacitracin, neomycin, and polymyxin B (found in the commonly-used triple antibiotic ointment) lead to decreased commensal Staphylococcus strain in mice (53). Oral isotretinoin or tetracycline treatment leads to decreased abundance of Cutibacterium on the skin and the microbiome of sebaceous areas shifts to mimic that of dry sites, containing a greater proportion of Staphylococcus and Streptococcus species (54).…”

Yogurt; A Novel Excipient (With Its Lysed Bacteria, Amino Acids, Vitamins, Fatty Acids, and Minerals) for “Topical Dermatological Products” and for “Skin Microbiota”

“…the unnecessary use of antibiotics, which may disturb the microbiome balance and harmony, resulting in dysbiosis. In such cases, it may take long periods for the microbiome to recover [27,28].…”

Reports from a Healthy Community: the 7th Conference on Beneficial Microbes

“…As such, the skin microbiome constitutes a complex ecosystem. Additional perturbations, such as antibiotic treatment, can also shift community composition, leading to colonization by pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus (16). To understand this process in more detail, the Grice laboratory developed a culture collection of over 70 isolates that they screened as cocultures, revealing a variety of interactions among members as well as the ability of some isolates to strongly inhibit S. aureus isolates from atopic dermatitis and skin and soft tissue infections.…”